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Did we really need to see Peter Pan calling Tinkerbell a "slut"?

Despite being over-ripe with themes worth exploring, uncovering or twisting, Peter Pan has never really been subject to the same sort of re-imaginings that stories falling alongside it in the childhood canon have been. Pinocchio has become a killer puppet, the Little Mermaid is a littler goldfish, Grimms' Fairy Tales get grimmer with each remaining, and Peter Pan has little more than the godawful Hook.

It's not like there isn't a host of material to build on. The obsession with mothers, with never growing up, with love triangles between fairies and princesses; it's a psychosexual goldmine, ready for subversion.

Of course, part of the reason why is the unusual copyright status of the character. Donated by J.M. Barrie to Great Ormond Street Hospital, Peter Pan entered the public domain in 1987, but a special government bill gave a perpetual extension of some of the rights: the hospital will always be entitled to receive royalties for any adaptation of the play.

That's led to some artists taking the back route to a critical commentary, the most notable being Alan Moore, whose book Lost Girls depicts the pornographic adventures of Wendy Darling, Alice Liddell and Dorothy Gale (from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz). Wendy's story contains a magic-free telling of Peter's tale, with him and his sister Anna(tinker)bel recast as homeless children in Kensington Gardens; Captain Hook recruits Peter into prostitution and rapes Annabel. It's a take, of sorts; but it'd be stretching it somewhat to say it's just bringing out material implicit in the play.

Régis Loisel's six-volume Peter Pan takes a more direct approach. Starting with young Peter's life in Victorian London, it ends with him and the lost boys in Never-Never Land. Along the way, nearly every possible box is ticked: we find out why he took the name "Pan", learn how Captain Hook lost his hand, learn why the crocodile ticks, where Tinkerbell's name came from, why Tiger Lily loves Peter, who the lost boys are, who can fly and who can't… The whole effect is one of a piling-up of reference after reference, with little of the book existing for any other reason than it takes us to where J.M. Barrie's story begins.

The major exception is even odder. Starting around half-way through, the London scenes introduce Jack the Ripper as a character; Peter's mother is his first victim. Quite aside from the fact that the historical synchronicity isn't quite as spot-on as Loisel suggests – the Ripper murders occurring sixteen years before the first performance of Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, although for a character who doesn't age that's less of an issue than it might otherwise be – the whole thing feels utterly unnecessary. It comes out of nowhere, barely interacts with the main plot, and although the deaths illustrate why London is a city Peter might want to leave, the lengthy detour into Ripperology (this Jack is a doctor acting during psychotic breaks, apparently) is just odd.

"Unnecessary" describes a lot of the book, in fact. Did we really need to see Peter calling Tinkerbell a "slut" after she stops him talking to his friends? Or hear Hook utter the strange non-idiom "you're pulling my cock again, with your stories"? Or a full explanation of why the crocodile ticks?

It would be perfectly possible to create a prequel to Peter Pan which justified its own existence. The world of Neverland lends itself perfectly to a sort of boys-own adventure tale, of pirates and indians and exploration and heroism, because that's what it is. Of course, any prequel would be subverted by the play itself showing that there's more to life, even for an adventurous boy, than having lots of fun all the time, but that could be worked with. Instead, we have the equivalent of Before Watchmen or the Star Wars prequels; and as with those, its hard to argue we're really better-off for it.

Commons Confidential: Money for old Gove

Treachery is proving profitable for Michael Gove since his backstabbing of Boris Johnson led to the victim being named Foreign Sec and the knifeman carved out of Theresa May’s cabinet. The former injustice secretary was overheard giving it the big “I am” in the Lords café bar by my snout and boasting that he’ll trouser £300,000 on the political sidelines. I note a £150,000 Times column and £17,500 HarperCollins book deal have been duly registered. Speaking engagements, he confided to the Tory peer Simone Finn, will be equally lucrative.

Gove is polite (always says hello and smiles at me despite what I write) but it was insensitive to talk money when his companion was moaning. Finn, a Cameron crony, whined that she had been sacked as a spad and so is out of pocket. Perhaps he could lend her a tenner. And I do hope Mickey isn’t passing himself off as an “expert” to coin it.

While Nigel Farage’s successor-but-one Paul “Dr Nutty” Nuttall protests that he never doctored a CV with an invented university PhD, Ukip’s ritzy nonpareil continues to enjoy the high life. My informant spied Farage, the self-appointed people’s chief revolter, relaxing in first class on a British Airways flight from New York to Blighty. Drinking three types of champagne doesn’t come cheap at £8,000 one-way, so either the Brexit elitist is earning big bucks or he has found a sugar daddy. Nowt’s too good for the Quitters, eh?

Labour’s youngest MP, Lou Haigh, was popular in a Justice for Colombia delegation to monitor the Northern Ireland-inspired peace process there. At Normandia prison in Chiquinquira, after a five-hour drive to see Farc guerrillas cleared for release, inmates pushed past the British male trade unionists to greet the 29-year-old Sheffield Heeley tribune. What a change from parliament, where it is women who are treated as if they’re wearing Harry Potter-style invisibility cloaks.

The kowtowing is catching up with Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, the SNP party animal and onetime-Tory-turned-Labour. Better late than never, I hear, she delivered a masterclass in toadying to the Chinese at a Ditchley Park conflab. Ahmed-Grovel MP avoided discussion of human rights abuses and made much instead of the joys of Scotch whisky to Beijing, and Scotland as a gateway to the UK. I trust she kept her sycophancy secret from SNP colleagues jostling in parliament a short while back for photographs with Lobsang Sangay, head of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

John Bercow is concerned that private schools dominate visits to parliament. So a bit like the Commons chamber, where 32 per cent of MPs (48 per cent of Tories) come from establishments that teach 7 per cent of pupils in the UK.

Kevin Maguire is Associate Editor (Politics) on the Daily Mirror and author of our Commons Confidential column on the high politics and low life in Westminster. An award-winning journalist, he is in frequent demand on television and radio and co-authored a book on great parliamentary scandals. He was formerly Chief Reporter on the Guardian and Labour Correspondent on the Daily Telegraph.